Welcome to my blog! I blog about the historical romances I write as well as the history behind them.

Historical Research Series Guest - James L. Nelson

I am over-the-top ecstatic to welcome one of my favorite authors, James L. Nelson, to my guest post series on historical fiction. James is also my first non-romance writer guest. His books are a delightful combination of masterful story-telling and historical detail.

I hope you enjoy today's interview as much as I did!

James, how long have you been writing and how did you get into it?

I started seriously writing in 1992, while I was still
serving as third mate aboard the “HMS” Rose,
a replica of a British frigate of the American Revolution period (she later
played Surprise in the movie Master and Commander). I swallowed the
anchor after that, that is, I stopped going to sea to concentrate on writing.
My first novel, By Force of Arms was
published in 1996.

The real running theme throughout my fiction is “what can I
write that will make me incredibly rich?” After nearly twenty years or writing,
the answer seems to be, “nothing.” But what I have always focused on has been maritime
fiction, anything having to do with the sea, my first love. Mostly American maritime
history, from colonial piracy to Civil War. Of course, now, with Fin Gall, I’ve strayed back to the
Viking era.

Do you have any special connection to the period?

As I said, it’s not so much a time period as it is a
maritime theme. I really love the maritime history of practically any era. That
said, the American Revolution is definitely the time period I find most
interesting, which is why I’ve done five novels and four works of nonfiction
about that period.

What appeals to you about this period?

The tricorn hats. I love the tricorn hats. Big fan of
flintlocks, too, I own a couple of them. Beyond that, I’m not sure why I’m particularly
drawn to that time period.

Do all your novels involve ships?

All my fiction is maritime centered. In fact, only one of
the seventeen books I’ve written is not specifically maritime in nature, and
that’s my book With Fire and Sword
about the Battle of Bunker Hill. But I have to say, for anyone out there
reading this and thinking, “Ships? Could anything be more dull?” the maritime
aspect is really a setting, not a central focus. The books still have all the
action, intrigue, love, lust, greed and heroism that make for good fiction.
Some of it just happens to take place on floating things.

Do you have a favorite type of ship? Why?

I love them all, from Viking long ships to RoRo’s (that’s
“roll on, roll off” – modern car carriers). But certainly the 18th
and early 19th century was the height of the development of sail,
and that is what I am most drawn to. In particular (again) the ships of the
period of the American Revolution.

If you had the opportunity to visit this time period, what
do you think you’d like best? What would you like least?

Certainly I would like to be at the American Revolution. For
someone like me who has sailed traditional ships professionally, there are a
thousand questions about how things were done back in the day. I have long fanaticized
about how great it would be to spend even a day aboard a ship in 1775 to see
how things were really done back then. But that’s just a fantasy, like so many
others, which I will not enumerate here.

As to where I would least like to be, I would say I would
least like to have appendicitis anytime before 1930.

In the Revolution at Sea series, your description of Rhode Island
and the islands in the bay feel so real to me. How do you capture that? Are you
intimately familiar with Rhode Island? Do you study old maps?

Back when I was sailing aboard Rose we used to sail in Narragansett Bay very often, so I have the
unique experience of logging lots of time in a square rigged ship in the waters
of Rhode Island, which certainly helped. In fact, that has a lot to do with why
my main character, Isaac Biddlecomb, is from Rhode Island, and Bristol in
particular. When we used to sail into Bristol, they used to really turn out for
us – the town fathers, the Revolutionary War reenactors, the high school band,
it was great. In 1992 we had some guest crew from the Soviet Union (when there
still was a Soviet Union – God am I getting old) and I explained to them,
looking at this scene that could have been concocted by Norman Rockwell, that
this was exactly the America that Americans envision when they think of the
best of this country. I found it very moving, and that’s why Isaac’s from
Bristol, Rhode Island.

Do you use real figures from history as main or secondary
characters, or are all of your characters fiction?

The main characters are fictitious. I take my fictional
characters and stick them into the real events of the time, so many of the
others characters are real people. They are often, however, people no one has
heard of (except for real history junkies), people such as Abraham Whipple or
Esek Hopkins.

Is there a real character from this time period that you
admire?

If we are talking about the Revolution, oh my goodness yes,
there are many people I admire. It strikes me as unfortunate that most of those
admirable people in the naval line are forgotten. People know John Paul Jones.
I have nothing against John Paul Jones, but there were many people who went to
sea who were equally worthy. The afore mentioned Abraham Whipple, Lambert
Wickes, John Barry, Joshua Barney, Isaac Biddlecomb. Oh, wait, I made that last
guy up, didn’t I?

Are any of your ships modeled after real ships? I’m
guessing the Rose is the HMS Rose, but that’s the only name I recognize so
far.

Like the people, some of the ships are real, some not. Isaac
Biddlecomb’s ships are fictitious, but most of the others are correct, such as
the ships in the first U.S. navy fleet to go to New Providence, or the British
frigate Glasgow, which I write about
in The Continental Risgue.

How much time do you spend researching each book?

Depends on what I am writing. After all these years I know
quite a bit about the naval action of the American Revolution, how life worked aboard
a navy ship of the time, all that. I might research the general history of an
event, or if I am putting my characters into a specific happening I’ll get
everything I can about that, but not too much research is needed before I start
writing. When I started my first novel about the Civil war, Glory in the Name (winner of the American
Library Association’s William Young Boyd Award, if I do say so myself, and I
do) I had to do quite a bit of research as that was an entirely new area for
me.

Do you tend to research before you write, or more as you
write?

I start in with great ambitions of spending months and
months researching, visiting all the places where the action took place, doing archeological
digs, perhaps writing a PhD dissertation on the event, but then after a few
weeks I get bored and start writing. I guess I have attention span issues. But
the research is on-going throughout the writing. Now that is for fiction, mind
you. Non-fiction does require many months of serious research. Really.

Do you tend to use secondary or primary research sources?

Again, it depends on what I am writing. In one book I had a
character at the Battle of Brandywine, but it was just a page or so, background
stuff, so I thought reading a few well-done secondary sources was fine. If
there is an event such as the invasion of new Providence which I mentioned
above, that will play a major role in the book, I want everything I can get my
hands on, but primary sources in particular. With the revolution it’s not too
hard because there are not too many sources. With the Civil war there is an
ungodly amount of material, so at a certain point you have to say, “Enough!”

Any favorite sources?

Sometimes they make it easy for you. The U.S. Navy’s Naval
Heritage Command has for decades been compiling Naval Documents of the American
Revolution, and multi-volume, encyclopedic collection of every primary source
that has to do with the American Revolution. An incredible work. There is a similar
collection for the Civil War done in the decades following the war called
Documents of the Union and Confederate navies of the Late war or some such
silly thing. The papers of most important players have been collected and
printed, such as Washington’s papers.

Do you read other authors who write in this time period?

I do, though I also read a bunch or other stuff as well. I
like Dewey Lambdin and J.D. Davies, who writes great novels about the
Restoration Navy. And of course Hornblower and O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin series.

Do you read other times periods/genres?

I do read a lot of stuff, though not as much as I would
like, since I rarely have time to read except right before bed, and then I am
falling asleep. I read a lot of nonfiction, history and such. Sometimes I’ll
read a book I just friggin’ want to read because I want to read it. Lee Child’s
Jack Reacher books are one guilty pleasure. The Flashman books are another, and
anything by Bernard Cornwell.

I think I recall you saying you were thinking of
self-publishing a book. Did you self-publish Fin Gall?

Ahh, Fin Gall. Yes, that’s the book I have out now, and
would urge readers to rush out in a digital buying frenzy and download this
novel about Viking-age Ireland. That’s an odd story. Like many authors who publish
with major trade publishers, I never thought much of self-publishing. But I
wrote Fin Gall a few years ago and it never found a publisher, and since I had
nothing coming out this year I thought “what the hell, I’ll publish it myself.”
It’s so damned easy these days. Well, so far it’s been a very successful
venture. And, ironically, I have a proposal off to a major trade publisher, an
editor I’ve worked with before, who has already said he likes the idea and
wants to make an offer, and still I’ve been waiting for months. And if he does
make an offer, it will be four or five months before I see any money and two
years before the book is out. This is SOP with the big boys. I tell you, this
self-publishing thing is looking better and better. If I do it again it will
depend on the sales of Fin Gall, but if they keep going the way they have been
for a while longer, I’m in. So, as I said, rush out (or, for that matter, stay
in you seat – the beauty of e-books and the death knell of bookstores) and
download Fin Gall!

I notice that Fin Gall seems to involve maritime
exploration, but is it a new time period? What got you interested in this time
period?

Fin Gall is more about raiding and pillaging than
exploration, per se, but I suppose you could look on sacking the Irish
countryside as a sort of exploration. As a maritime historian I have always
been interested in all aspects of the maritime world, and Vikings are a big
part of that. I had already read quite a bit about the Vikings before I started
Fin Gall, and had always loved the period, though I had never written about it.
Beside, I’m of Swedish descent, so it’s in the DNA!

What are you hoping readers take a way from your novels.
E.g., do you hope they’ll get a sense of history or do you just want them to
enjoy themselves?

Job number one is good storytelling. That’s the most important
thing. I want my readers to be whisked away to another place and time, to be
caught up in that, to live another life through the book. That’s what it’s all
about. If I can teach them a little maritime history along the way, more
better. Emily Dickinson used a great nautical metaphor to describe the joy of
reading: “There is no frigate like a book/To take us lands away.”

I believe you also write non-fiction. What are some of the
books you’ve written in that

I do write nonfiction, which I also enjoy very much. I like
being able to take some of the storytelling techniques I’ve learned writing
fiction and applying them to nonfiction to make the pages turn. I did a book on
the ironclads Monitor and Merrimack called Reign
of Iron, three about the development of the American navy during the
Revolution which were Benedict Arnold’s
Navy, George Washington’s Secret Navy and George Washington’s Great Gamble, and a book on the Battle of
Bunker Hill called With Fire and Sword.